Schumpeterian entrepreneurship as dual mediation between markets and between heterogeneous resources

The dualism of Joseph Schumpeter's personal and depersonalised concepts of entrepreneurship, together with his thesis about the obsolescence of the entrepreneur leading to the downfall of capitalism, have spawned contradictory interpretations and divergent research traditions. Richard Langlois proposes to resolve this dualism and the obsolescence thesis by defining entrepreneurship in terms of charisma and also applying it to corporate leaders. We disagree with Langlois's solution and instead define entrepreneurship as a dual mediation between markets and between heterogeneous resources. Our solution nevertheless shares similarities with Langlois's own entrepreneurial theory of the firm and builds on the post-Schumpeterian evolutionary economics literature

Following entrepreneurs to markets: What entrepreneurship theory and market studies can learn from each other

Rationalist approaches of entrepreneurship theory and empiricist studies of markets that draw on Science and Technology Studies and actor-network theory (ANT) have had limited interactions so far and tend to treat each other with suspicion and dismissal. We review both approaches from their respective points of view to identify their differences and misunderstandings, but also their historical, methodological and theoretical commonalities and complementarities. Drawing on an empirical study of e-commerce entrepreneurship in southern England in the mid-2000s that utilised ANT, we articulate the notion of the entrepreneurial market as a promising construct for establishing common ground between entrepreneurship theory and market studies for a more fruitful dialogue

Implementing the knowledge-based economy: Market devices as policy instruments

We chart the rise and fall of Business Link as a policy instrument for furthering the knowledge-based economy, while also examining how it was implemented by one particular Business Link Operator in Southern England. We zoom in on the specific policy objective to encourage SMEs to adopt e-commerce, which was singled out by the Blair government as a key innovation that marked a competitive "knowledge-driven economy." Drawing on qualitative data and analysis (including policy documents, media reports and interviews with Personal Business Advisers), we undertake a socio-material description of Business Link's enterprise support activities. We found that the implementation of Business Link by successive UK governments required the construction and operation of socio-technical devices to perform a variety of market functions to address a perceived market failure that was thought to impede the rate of SMEs’ adoption of managerial and technological innovations. We show that the effectiveness and efficiency of these market devices depended on their particular design, composition, and mode of deployment, and that after the Labour government’s 2005 reforms broke the original market devices, Business Link actors created new ones to perform those market functions and fulfil the policy objectives, sometimes in contravention of government rules

Toward self-learning model-based EAs

Model-based evolutionary algorithms (MBEAs) are praised for their broad applicability to black-box optimization problems. In practical applications however, they are mostl

Cohomological finiteness conditions for elementary amenable groups

It is proved that every elementary amenable group of type $FP_\infty$ admits a cocompact classifying space for proper actions

Preconditioning in situ concrete for permeation testing Part 1: Initial surface absorption

A new method for testing concrete using the initial surface absorption test (ISAr) has been developed for site use. It is based on applying a vacuum to an ISAT cap placed on the concrete surface until drying is achieved. The progress of the drying is monitored by placing indicating silica gel desiccant in the ISAT cap and observing the colour change. The method is quick, simple and practical for in situ applications. Results of comparisons with the existing in situ method in BS 1881 show that the new method is potentially more capable of producing reliable and reproducible measurements, and therefore will allow better comparison of in situ and laboratory-obtained data

Magnetic field diagnostics and spatio-temporal variability of the solar transition region

Magnetic field diagnostics of the transition region from the chromosphere to the corona faces us with the problem that one has to apply extreme UV spectro-polarimetry. While for coronal diagnostic techniques already exist through infrared coronagraphy above the limb and radio observations on the disk, for the transition region one has to investigate extreme UV observations. However, so far the success of such observations has been limited, but there are various projects to get spectro-polarimetric data in the extreme UV in the near future. Therefore it is timely to study the polarimetric signals we can expect for such observations through realistic forward modeling. We employ a 3D MHD forward model of the solar corona and synthesize the Stokes I and Stokes V profiles of C IV 1548 A. A signal well above 0.001 in Stokes V can be expected, even when integrating for several minutes in order to reach the required signal-to-noise ratio, despite the fact that the intensity in the model is rapidly changing (just as in observations). Often this variability of the intensity is used as an argument against transition region magnetic diagnostics which requires exposure times of minutes. However, the magnetic field is evolving much slower than the intensity, and thus when integrating in time the degree of (circular) polarization remains rather constant. Our study shows the feasibility to measure the transition region magnetic field, if a polarimetric accuracy on the order of 0.001 can be reached, which we can expect from planned instrumentation.Comment: Accepted for publication in Solar Physics (4.Mar.2013), 19 pages, 9 figure

The E_{11} origin of all maximal supergravities

Starting from the eleven dimensional E_{11} non-linear realisation of M-theory we compute all possible forms, that is objects with totally antisymmetrised indices, that occur in four dimensions and above as well as all the 1-forms and 2-forms in three dimensions. In any dimension D, the D-1-forms lead to maximal supergravity theories with cosmological constants and they are in precise agreement with the patterns of gauging found in any dimension using supersymmetry. The D-forms correspond to the presence of space-filling branes which are crucial for the consistency of orientifold models and have not been derived from an alternative approach, with the exception of the 10-dimensional case. It follows that the gaugings of supergravities and the spacetime-filling branes possess an eleven dimensional origin within the E_{11} formulation of M-theory. This and previous results very strongly suggest that all the fields in the adjoint representation of E_{11} have a physical interpretation.Comment: 54 page

Generalization of a theorem of Gonchar

Let $X, Y$ be two complex manifolds, let $D\subset X,$ $G\subset Y$ be two nonempty open sets, let $A$ (resp. $B$) be an open subset of $\partial D$ (resp. $\partial G$), and let $W$ be the 2-fold cross $((D\cup A)\times B)\cup (A\times(B\cup G)).$ Under a geometric condition on the boundary sets $A$ and $B,$ we show that every function locally bounded, separately continuous on $W,$ continuous on $A\times B,$ and separately holomorphic on $(A\times G) \cup (D\times B)$ "extends" to a function continuous on a "domain of holomorphy" $\hat{W}$ and holomorphic on the interior of $\hat{W}.$Comment: 14 pages, to appear in Arkiv for Matemati

The Dipole Coupling of Atoms and Light in Gravitational Fields

The dipole coupling term between a system of N particles with total charge zero and the electromagnetic field is derived in the presence of a weak gravitational field. It is shown that the form of the coupling remains the same as in flat space-time if it is written with respect to the proper time of the observer and to the measurable field components. Some remarks concerning the connection between the minimal and the dipole coupling are given.Comment: 10 pages, LaTe